VieuxChat wrote:
The game let you change your mind if you want to.

only after reaching a system

i like the "cycle through ships with movement" button, though combo of perform all queued moves" with that would speed it up too.



perform queed movements, then cycle through what is left. lol but if they give us too many buttons, why play the game.



I like the idea of centering focus on the game (not micromanaging), but at some point all the buttons turn into micromanaging in themselves.

Calico wrote:
agreed.







Hmmm, i guess you're right. Although you could make it so that Combat Fleets move first by default..... but then we would need to enable the game to distinguish between combat and non-combat fleets..... nah, way to hard to implement. ok, let's stick with "perform all queued moves" option then. Although a command to colonize a System at arrival would also do the trick for me.

I don't mind this so long as there's a cycle through fleets option. Similar things happen in most 4X games, they just inform you whether you've got movement available on certain units.

davea wrote:
I don't think this is a good idea. For a ship which is deep inside a string and will not arrive at the destination this turn anyway, I am sure we agree this does not matter.

agreed.

davea wrote:
Consider a ship which is near the end of a string and it will arrive at the destination. I need to control when this happens, because there might be a battle. I do not want the game to do it for me. For example, I may have a fast combat fleet, and a slightly slower transport or ground assault fleet which is not good at combat. Both may be due to arrive at an enemy system. I really need to make sure the combat fleet arrives first.



I support the idea of a button which says "perform all queued moves", but I do not want that happening automatically.

Hmmm, i guess you're right. Although you could make it so that Combat Fleets move first by default..... but then we would need to enable the game to distinguish between combat and non-combat fleets..... nah, way to hard to implement. ok, let's stick with "perform all queued moves" option then. Although a command to colonize a System at arrival would also do the trick for me.

I don't think this is a good idea. For a ship which is deep inside a string and will not arrive at the destination this turn anyway, I am sure we agree this does not matter. Consider a ship which is near the end of a string and it will arrive at the destination. I need to control when this happens, because there might be a battle. I do not want the game to do it for me. For example, I may have a fast combat fleet, and a slightly slower transport or ground assault fleet which is not good at combat. Both may be due to arrive at an enemy system. I really need to make sure the combat fleet arrives first.



I support the idea of a button which says "perform all queued moves", but I do not want that happening automatically.

I totally agree that it's nice that auto-movement is delayed to the end of the turn if you change your mind.



And here comes the BUT: A Ship travelling along a String does not give you the choice to change your mind... so why not make it move at the start of the turn? not the entire movement, just until it reaches the end of the string.... cause you don't have any choice until then anyway. I don't think it's a big deal, but a very nice and easy to implement thing. Especially late game, with a dozen of Fleets around moving, i now tend to check every fleet manually just to make sure that i don't "waste" a turn. With hopfully more Alerts coming, you might even get a message at the end of the turn that you have a Colony Ship in Orbit of an uninhabited Star that hasn't been used yet.

If your fleet hasnt finished its move before the end of a turn you can often force it do so by selecting it and clicking its destination again.



I find this usefull when you really need to know whats at the destination before you finish other instructions and end the turn.

Yes Civ did this and it works great. Similar would work very well here too. Simply have a notification that you have units that haven't finished their actions yet and allow dealing with it before ending the turn. Or have that said magic button to process the queue when needed.

Igncom1 wrote:
I think ships should only move when you hit the end turn button, that way it makes it eaiser on the whole (everone takes their turn at the same time thing)



Sort of like a (Order phase-Combat Phase-Movement phase-next turn) sorta deal.

I would love to see that as a set-up option in game creation. It'd make for a very different game, but for multiplayer games it'll take a lot of the weirdness out.

This is how the whole Civilization series has done it. I see no issue with this. Guess I'm just already used to it from playing civ games for the past 15 years. If anything they should implement something like civ 5 has where any remaining moves are directly brought to your attention before allowing or executing the end turn function.

This may be a deliberate implementation, but I'm wondering why auto-move happens at the end of a turn, rather than at the beginning. Here's an example:



It's turn 1. I'm moving a colony ship from Canis (my home world) to Ursa (direct connection via string). The distance is 10 units; the ship has a movement rate of 6. I select the ship at Canis and right click on Ursa. The ship immediately moves 6 units towards Ursa. I do other things during turn 1 (research, send the scout in a different direction, etc.) I then hit End Turn. What happens next?



My expectation is that the ship would automatically move the remaining 4 units to Ursa and start turn 2 at Ursa, allowing me to colonize it (or, if no suitable planets are there, head off in a different direction). But that's not what happens. Instead, if I rely upon auto-move, the ship sits there between Canis and Ursa all through turn 2. When I hit End Turn at the end of turn 2, the ship then moves the remaining distance to Ursa, and the first I can use it at Ursa is on turn 3.



On the other hand, at any point during turn 2, I can click on that ship and manually move it immediately to Ursa and then colonize it (given appropriate planets) or send it in another direction. So by doing manual checks and move, I can arrive and act a full turn earlier than I can using auto-move.



Given how time-critical activities such as colonization, fleet combat, and invasion can be -- usually racing other factions to a given system -- I find myself manually checking (and usually moving) any ship that is approaching its destination, because otherwise it will arrive there a full turn later. I'm hard-pressed to understand the inconsistency between auto-move and manual movement from a game-design point of view. ..fritz..

I think ships should only move when you hit the end turn button, that way it makes it eaiser on the whole (everone takes their turn at the same time thing)



Sort of like a (Order phase-Combat Phase-Movement phase-next turn) sorta deal.

I agree it can be improved, with a button to cycle through unmoved fleets, and a button to perform the queued moves.

davea wrote:
The game is working as designed. The first thing that happens when you hit "end turn" is the game looks to see if you have any ships with move orders, that you did not move manually. If so, it performs the order for you. In your example, you chose not to do anything with the colony ship during your entire turn 2 movement. When you hit end turn 2, the game finished up your order for you. But your order didn't occupy the entire turn.



But, what you should realize is that currently the ordered moves happen at the end of your turn. Not the beginning of the next turn. So you should check your ships, to see if anything important will happen (like a colony ship arriving) and take action *before* hitting next turn.

Well, yes, I realize that's what happens; I've put in 70+ hours on the game so far, and I just documented it above. My issue is that it's a design choice that I suspect most new players would not recognize, one that can have significant impact on how well you do in the game. And when you have large numbers of ships/fleets moving around a large/huge map, it becomes an incredibly tedious design choice, particularly since there is no way through visual inspection of telling which ships still can be moved manually and which ones can't; you have to click on a given ship/fleet to find out, something you can't always do (I had an enemy fleet on a string between systems overlapping one of my own fleets on that same string, and I could not select my fleet, no matter what I did).



It's nice to know this is a design choice, rather than a bug; I just happen to think it's a bad one. ..fritz..

i didnt find this odd at all, mainly because it's the same as most games like this, even total wars and such, queued tasks are all perfomed at the end of a turn

The game is working as designed. The first thing that happens when you hit "end turn" is the game looks to see if you have any ships with move orders, that you did not move manually. If so, it performs the order for you. In your example, you chose not to do anything with the colony ship during your entire turn 2 movement. When you hit end turn 2, the game finished up your order for you. But your order didn't occupy the entire turn.



I agree that having a separate button "move all" (perform all queued moves) would be good. But, what you should realize is that currently the ordered moves happen at the end of your turn. Not the beginning of the next turn. So you should check your ships, to see if anything important will happen (like a colony ship arriving) and take action *before* hitting next turn.



This is discussed in the FAQ linked below. In the suggestion thread, there is mention of various alerts being requested (like a colony ship arriving) and also the request for a separate "move all" button or action.

VieuxChat wrote:
The game let you change your mind if you want to.

But the game already lets me do that now, without the manual movement discrepancy. During turn 1, with that colony ship having made its move for that turn, now sitting halfway between Canis and Ursa and having no manual movement points available, I can still select it and give it a different ultimate destination. So the manual move/automove discrepancy has nothing to do with that.



Furthermore, what I can't do during turn 2 (with manual movement points available) is change my mind and go back to Canis without going first to Ursa. The game forces me to go to Ursa first, which means if, say, there's a pirate there, I can't avoid it. So the question remains: why does auto-move get me to a destination system a full turn later than if I manual selection and movement as the ship approaches its destination? Especially when, as noted, arrival time can be so critical, either for colonization or for combat?

Another idea would be adding a "move all" button.

I agree, this is an odd bug / feature. I like being able to change my mind, but if the ships used up their movement / completed their moves (already in progress) at the BEGINNING of a turn, then I can act on the newly explored systems (etc) before the following turn. Or, perhaps, setting up an option for 1/2 moves (a toggle in settings)? First half of the turn is movement, 2nd half is all other actions (in case you want to change ships transit, etc)?

The game let you change your mind if you want to.